Welcome to Year of the Firefly: The Free Serialization. Here’s Chapter 4. 📖 New chapters are released every Monday and Thursday. Whether you’re a long-time reader or discovering my work for the first time, you can read the entire novel on Substack for free. Visit the page anytime to catch up on chapters you may have missed. 📚 Prefer holding a real book in your hands? Skip the weekly wait and grab the complete paperback edition right now on Amazon or other online retailers. Ebook is available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. 📝 New to my writing? Explore all eight of my published books on my website, malcolmivey.com. 🙂 Thank you for reading, and as always, reviews and are highly appreciated! Wishing you momentum. —IV
👉Looking for Chapter 1? Begin here: Part One: Eight Weeks | Chapter 1
👉Read about the genesis of Miranda McGuire here: To My Incarcerated Sisters
👉Get an introduction to Year of the Firefly here: Introduction to Book One of the Miranda Rights series
CHAPTER 4
She dropped the key. It clattered against the emergency brake and slid down the side of her seat. A flurry of dope drizzled over the console.
“Shit!” She forced the Ziploc and the pistol to the bottom of her purse, burying them beneath the moisturizers, sunglasses, lip gloss, writing journal, trail mix bars, packs of gum and miscellaneous receipts. Then she grabbed her eyeliner and returned to the rearview.
The trunk and back bumper of the cruiser disappeared behind the Yukon in the neighboring parking space. She exhaled. Relief washed over her.
You see? What if he would’ve seen what you were doing? What if he would’ve walked over to your window and saw that gun? What could you have said? “It’s not mine officer. It belongs to my drug dealer boyfriend. I’m just holding it while he goes to score me some Roxys . . .” You know what your problem is? You never— Oh shit. Here he comes again!
The cruiser slowly reversed back into view and stopped behind her, its passenger door directly between her taillights, hemming her in.
A lanky deputy with thinning hair stepped out and casually unlatched the protective strap on his sidearm. Gravel crunched as he approached her window. Big sunny Panhandle smile. The skin around his eyes rippled outward. Like someone dropped a pebble in the center of his face.
She held up the eyeliner pencil for a beat longer, belaboring her message. Subliminal subterfuge. No sir, that was absolutely not a key you saw me holding to my nose but rather a harmless eyeliner pencil. See? Common mistake.
His smile dimmed a few volts as he motioned for her to roll down the window.
Problem was she needed her car key for that, and her car key was somewhere beneath her seat, possibly still covered in suspicious white powder.
It’s not white, said her inner narrator, it’s taupe.
This was a perfect example of why she hated smoking weed, this paralysis by analysis. Should she reach under her seat for the key? And if so, via what route? Down the side or between her legs? She knew there was an acceptable thing to do, a way to act so as not to draw suspicion, but she was damned if she could figure it out. In the end she just opened the door.
He took a step back. His hand brushed the butt of his service weapon. “Easy darlin’. The window would have been sufficient. This your car?”
She nodded. “Do you wanna see my registration? I think it’s in the glove—”
“In due time.” He was staring at her breasts, smiling at them. “You don’t live here, do you?”
“Um, no. I’m just waiting on a friend.”
“Thought as much.” He continued to ogle her. “What’s your shirt say? Astronauts?”
“Close.” She attempted a coquettish smile. “Argonauts. It’s like adventurers.” She wished she was adept at the subtle art of flirty manipulation, like some busty, sharp-tongued getaway driver in an Elmore Leonard novel. But she was far too awkward for that. Sober, maybe; stoned, no chance.
“And who is this friend?”
“I’m sorry?”
“This resident you’re waiting on. What’s her name?”
“Oh, um, Nick . . . Nikki. Nicole.” Floundering. Not good.
His smile diminished further. He towered over her, stepping inside the open car door, one hand on the roof. “Nicole what?”
“Um . . . Nicole, sir?” Gosh what a jerk.
He shook his head and spoke with exaggerated slowness, enunciating each word as if she were a lost foreign tourist. “What is this Nicole’s last name?”
“Ohhh.” It dawned on her. “It’s, um, Gucci . . . onni!” she added quickly. “Nicole Guccionni.”
“Italian, huh?” He tapped his fingers on the roof, surveying the interior of her car. “My wife’s family is from Naples. Well, her mother’s side. Her dad was just stationed over there. Navy. Her grandmother still lives in the house she was born in. 106 years old, can you believe it? Her Nona she calls her. Lives right near that volcano, Mount Etna.”
“Vesuvius is the volcano closest to Naples,” she heard herself saying. Shut up Miranda! Just let him be right! “Etna is in eastern Sicily.”
He frowned and sucked something between his teeth. “Same difference. You a college student or something?”
She nodded. Even though Italy’s volcanos were covered in her tenth-grade geography class. “I’m a freshman at West Florida.” She tried to redirect his attention back to her breasts. “Argonauts.”
“Interesting.” He looked behind her into the back seat. “I wonder if that’s a lie too.”
“Excuse me?”
He continued to tap on her roof. Apparently, her breasts had been weighed and found wanting because now he was staring straight at her face. Tapping and staring. Until finally he spoke. “I’ve been living in this apartment complex for going on ten years. I know every resident. By face and by name. There’s no Guccionnis here. There’s no Italians here. Except my wife. Trust me, if there were, she’d be on their balcony right now drinking wine and complaining about what a strunze she has for a husband . . .”
“Oh, she doesn’t live here,” Miranda scrambled to explain, willing the storytelling gears in her brain to crank out something believable. “I think she left her purse at a bible study last night. One of her friends from Scenic Baptist. I just drove her here to get it.”
“Scenic Baptist, huh? Who’s the friend?”
“Um, Monica something? She said her name, but I can’t remember.”
Movement in the alley caused her to doubletake. Her heart leapt. Nick! He paused in the middle of the trail, rising on the toes of his sneakers, craning his neck for a better look. Then, just as quickly, he vanished into the shadows. Gone.
“Monica something,” he repeated, following her eyes. “It’s possible, I guess.”
Nothing in his demeanor suggested relief. Think Miranda! There has to be a way out of this. It’s a puzzle. You love puzzles . . .
He slapped the roof. A metallic twang went through her, jolting her upright. About to say something, he paused and raised a sandy eyebrow. “You all right darlin’?”
She nodded. There was heroin on her kneecap.
“Well, here’s what we’re gonna do,” he said. “My instincts are telling me you’re up to something. I should just run you off. But I’m curious about this Italian Baptist friend of yours. Maybe we’ll wait for her together.”
The little girl and her grandfather returned from the bluffs. He waved at them. The child smiled and waved back then pointed at Miranda through the windshield and said, “Bad!”
A burst of static erupted from his radio. He adjusted it without looking. “Listen, I already know you’re getting high. This car smells like a Colorado dope dispensary. I’m just trying to figure out why you’re doing it in my apartment complex.”
She swallowed what little saliva remained in her mouth and tried not to look at the incriminating tumor that bulged from the side of her purse.
He held out his palm. “Let me see your identification.”
Now she had to look. Luckily her wallet had somehow risen to the top. She grabbed it and plucked her driver’s license from between her library and debit cards.
“Miranda McGuire,” he said. “Nice Irish name. And only 18 years old. Just a baby.” He shook his head. “So tell me, Miranda, what are you really doing here? Buying dope? Selling dope? Maybe you’re driving around the little thugs who’ve been breaking into apartments over the last few weeks?”
“No!” she sputtered.
He eyed her coolly. “Step out of the car, ma’am.”
“W-w-why?” Her hands were trembling.
“So I can search your vehicle.”
A cliché formed in her brain. The residue of every Cops rerun she had ever watched with her dad. Before she had time to weigh its wisdom, her mouth was pried open like a second-story window and the words leaped into the air between them. “Do you have a warrant?”
“I don’t need a warrant, darlin’,” he smirked, “I’ve got probable cause.”
Defeated, she reached for her purse and moved to exit the car.
“Leave it,” he commanded.
